About the Speaker: Her Excellency, Ms. Shyamala B. Cowsik is the High Commissioner of India in Canada — See her profile below.

Topic of her speech on ICFC's first anniversary on August 7, 2005: "India in the New Millennium"

Mrs. Cowsik was a Patron of ICFC. Read her Message as ICFC Patron.

Personal Profile of Ms. Shyamala B. Cowsik

Ms. Shyamala Balasubramanyam Cowsik is a professional diplomat. Before joining the Indian Foreign Service through the regular All India Civil Services examination — where she was the first woman to top the country-wide list of successful candidates — she rounded off her academic career with a Master's degree in Physics.

Her first diplomatic assignment was in Geneva, Switzerland, where she served as Vice-Consul and later, as Consul of India, while simultaneously acting as Alternate Delegate to various UN conferences. Her next foreign assignment was as First Secretary at the Embassy of India in Washington, USA, handling political affairs, from where she moved as Political Counsellor and second-in-command to the Embassy of India in Bangkok. She was later Counsellor/Minister and second-in-command at the Embassy of India in Belgrade, and Joint Secretary/Head of Division at the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi.

Mrs. Cowsik's first assignment as Head of Mission was as Ambassador of India to the Philippines (1992-95). She returned to Washington straight from this post as the Deputy Chief of Mission, again a first for a woman. She next served as the High Commissioner of India to Cyprus from late 1997 to mid-2001, before moving to The Hague in July 2001 as the Ambassador of India to the Netherlands. She proceeded directly from The Hague to Ottawa in early 2005, and is the current High Commissioner of India to Canada.

Her extra curricular activities include classical music, both Western and Indian, reading and trekking. She has a 22-year old son, Siddhartha.

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